A Light on the Hill

by Connilyn Cossette

  I followed Darek through the door, stepping into the courtyard, and the sight of the large rectangular space made my jaw go slack. A stone staircase at one end led up to the second-floor rooms and another to the flat rooftop above that. Tattered awnings, held aloft by cedar posts, shaded the edges of the courtyard and a large loom leaned against one stone wall. With a small fire pit at the center and four enormous Egyptian-style clay braziers in the corners of the area, this place would be the perfect setting for entertaining and feeding guests. I could nearly hear the chatter of friends gathered in groups on the ground, partaking of the meals I would make, and the squeals of children darting between bodies in games of chase. This would be a place of gathering and celebrating. A place of healing and rest.

  Blinking away the hopeful images, I noticed Darek was at the far end of the courtyard, examining the tall wide-mouthed oven, jamming his fingers into the gaps and testing for loose stones, whistling a tune to himself. His attitude was so unaffected—as if he’d not disappeared for weeks and left me to face the elder council alone. The memory from the night as he walked away from me struck hard, lodging in my ribs with sharp accuracy. Suddenly my pulse pounded, and for once I had no interest in veiling my emotions.

  “Why are you here?” I demanded as I crossed the courtyard.

  “Dov told me you will be running this inn. I am merely deciding which repairs are most imperative and what can be held off until after you and Eitan move in.” He pressed a loose stone back into place with his palm and then dusted his hands on his tunic. “Of course, the oven will need to be shored up, although it looks to be in surprisingly good shape for being open to the elements.”

  Thrown by his casual answer to my question, and a little distracted by his answer, I stammered, “No. No, why are you in Kedesh?”

  He looked over his shoulder. “For you.”

  For me? The hurt I’d felt as I scanned the crowd that day, searching for him, washed over me. My voice trembled. “But . . . But I was on trial for murder and you were not there.”

  “Of course not.”

  I recoiled, my mouth dropping open. “And why not?”

  He turned, leaning his back against the oven, arms crossed. I caught sight of the new scar on his forearm, the wound Rossim had inflicted and I’d wrapped with a scrap of my headscarf. A scar he’d received in defense of me. “Moriyah, how many eyewitnesses does it take to convict a murderer?”

  Mosheh’s law dropped into my head with distinct clarity. “At least two.”

  “Exactly. I refused to be the second witness. Raviv would have done anything to have me there, to twist the small bit I’d overheard that night and make it seem as though I, too, believed you guilty of premeditation. Without my presence, all he had, beside his own testimony, was hearsay.”

  My mouth rounded in shock.

  “Of course, I knew nothing of Eitan’s part in the accident, but I had complete faith that the elders would see the truth. I could not imagine anyone looking into those beautiful eyes and seeing anything but your absolute lack of motive for killing two young boys. We stayed in Shechem until the trial was over and Raviv had left Shiloh. I could not chance crossing paths with him for now.”

  I sank down on the stone steps nearby, slumping forward. “I have ruined your family.”

  “No.” He pushed away from the oven, then approached me with a solemn expression. “You have done nothing of the sort. I have hope that someday I’ll be able to make amends with my brother but, for now, I fear he is far from able to forgive. He must grieve the boys, and I will let him do so in peace. I sent word to my father that I was safe and here with you.”

  “But your land . . . your family . . .”

  “The land will always be there, Moriyah. My father will see that it is farmed and the groves tended, I have little doubt. As for my family . . .” he pinned a long, meaningful gaze on me. “I have plans to make my own.”

  Warmth flooded my every limb.

  “I met Eitan,” he said, his cheek quirking with humor. “He’s quite protective of you, you know. And very suspicious of me. I was not sure he’d let me come up the stairs. All but threatened me not to hurt his ima.” He lifted a brow, questioning the label Eitan had gifted me with.

  “He asked me to be his mother.” Ima. The word sang in my head again.

  “I’m glad to hear it. Every man should be blessed to have a son with a warrior’s heart.”

  Son? I braced my palm flat against the cold stone stair I was sitting on, hoping to absorb some of its strength. Was it shaking? Or was I?

  “I’ve already spoken to your friend, the priest. Your father’s missive, and the blessing inside for our betrothal, convinced him quite handily that I was not a threat. Of course, the other message I delivered from Eleazer, with his personal seal, went a long way to doing so as well.”

  I echoed his formal tone. “It sounds as though you have everything all planned out.”

  “I do. I’ve been thinking of it every single moment I was away from you.” He took another step toward me, a mischievous smile inching upward.

  “And you’ve really settled a betrothal agreement with my father? Without my consent?”

  His next step brought him within only one pace of where I sat, the closest I’d been to him since those last moments before I ran for my life in the dark. “I have. And I insisted on a short betrothal.” His enveloping gaze heated my blood. “A very short betrothal.”

  I cocked an eyebrow in challenge, a futile effort to counteract his potent effect on my composure. “And of course this is all for our vineyard?”

  He waved a dismissive hand. “I told your father I had no need for a vineyard. I will have my own olive groves someday when I am ready to retire from service to Yehoshua. Besides, Ishai has formally adopted and declared Yuval his heir.”

  I caught my breath. “Truly?”

  He tilted his stubbled chin with a curious look. “Does that upset you?”

  “No.” I shook my head, sniffing back tears. “No, that makes me very happy. Yuval is in his rightful place, in his vineyard, and I am glad to call him my brother.”

  “I thought you might say that.” Closing the distance between us, he placed his palm on the side of my neck, then slid it down until his thumb swept across my collarbone. I welcomed the sweet sensation of his hand resting where it belonged. He leaned forward, his warm breath teasing my lips. “It makes me love you even more.” His voice dipped into a desperate rasp as he bent down to kiss me.

  Just the touch of his mouth to mine after so long melted me into a puddle of honey without a clear thought in my head, and I found myself clinging to him, gripping his tunic in my fists and silently begging for more. He pulled me to standing, wrapped his arms around me, and complied with my demand.

  “Will you marry me, Moriyah?” He brushed his lips over mine once more. “Even though my family will never accept this match?”

  “Is your father angry?”

  His brow wrinkled and he glanced away. “No . . . brokenhearted, perhaps, that Raviv and I are divided. And of course he, too, grieves the boys.”

  My heart lurched painfully. Would this burden always be so heavy? “You cannot do this, Darek. It is not fair to them. . . . It’s not fair to you. You cannot turn your back on your inheritance, your family, your future.”

  Placing his hands on my shoulders, he kissed my forehead. “I am turning my back on nothing. My father was wounded, but he is strong and healthy. He will live for many more years, and my inheritance is secure. My brother’s anger burns hot and, for now, it is best if I stay away. Bitter as he is, we are bound by blood and shared history. I have hope that time will smooth the rocky ground between us.”

  The memory of Raviv’s iron-tipped glare after the trial, divided between little Eitan and me, hovered in the back of my mind, contradicting Darek’s hopes.

  “Besides,” he leaned forward to place another lingering kiss on my lips. “You and Eitan are my future. We can build our family just as
well within these walls as without.”

  “But I cannot ask you to be locked inside this city with us for who knows how long.” I swept my arm around in a circle. “What will you do? Stand here and guard the walls?”

  Darek’s steady gaze faltered. “No, I will not be guarding Kedesh. I have been given a task by Yehoshua. He was quite intrigued with all the information I relayed to him upon my arrival at Shiloh—about our journey, and about Megiddo.”

  “What sort of task?”

  “Now that the issue with the eastern tribes is settled, and the other tribes have dispersed from Shiloh and Shechem to settle into their allotted lands, there is much to be done. As you are now aware, there are still many cities yet to be claimed.”

  Indeed, not only Beit She’an and Megiddo, but the plains all up and down the coast were still held by various Canaanite tribes. And Philistine invaders from across the sea held control over a few cities in the south.

  “The tribes will have to root them out. One by one,” he said. “As I have now been able to find my way through that territory twice, I have been charged with leading a team that will determine which cities are weakest and then pass on information as to how the tribes can make inroads. The large battles are over for now, but the long war for this land is just beginning.”

  “Yehoshua wants you to be a spy in Canaan?”

  He nodded.

  “Will you be safe?”

  A grave expression passed over his face. “I am asking more of you than you are of me, Moriyah. I may be gone for weeks or perhaps months at a time. And there will always be the chance that I will not return. Will you still bind yourself to me in light of such uncertainties?”

  Casting a glance around the empty courtyard, I prayed for clarity as I considered the obscure path that lay ahead of us and the obstacles a marriage between Darek and I might present—not the least of which was his brother’s sworn vengeance on his bride and her son. My eyes touched on the stone oven, and somehow the yeasty smell of fresh bread seemed to tantalize my senses, fleetingly making me wonder how long it would be before I could bake a batch within its wide cavern and serve my first guests.

  Although I missed my father and Ora desperately, this inn was such a gift. My home in Shiloh had felt like a prison, but this place breathed freedom and hope from every dusty corner. I may be locked inside Kedesh for the rest of my days, but somehow instead of feeling trapped, I welcomed the high walls as protection from Yahweh. When I’d been offered such extravagant mercy, how could I see such boundaries as anything but loving-kindness? And here was Darek offering me an extra measure of love in spite of everything.

  I’d given Darek to Yahweh, and astonishingly, Yahweh had brought him back to me. How could I do anything but trust an Almighty God who somehow seemed to care for even a branded, convicted manslayer like me?

  A vision rose in my mind, an image of Darek’s peaceful valley and the mighty rush of heron’s wings lifting into the air from the rippled surface. I could feel my doubts and fears lifting away as well, leaving only shalom in their wake. A firm assurance, one that could only given by Yahweh, told me that Darek and I would both see the charred fields of our pasts yield fruit far beyond our comprehension. Somehow the ashes of sin and sorrow would be used to nourish the roots of many generations to come.

  “My answer,” I said, “is the same it would have been had you been the one to come for me that morning. Nothing would honor me more.”

  Darek raised a hand to cup my marred cheek in his warm palm, and I lifted a smile, glad that a veil no longer hid the curve of my lips from the man who saw past the mark and into my heart.

  A Note From the Author

  In considering what to write next after the OUT FROM EGYPT series, I spent some time digging into the book of Joshua, thinking about what would have come next for the people of Israel. Of course, there were many battles fought for the land of Canaan, and much transition for a people who’d spent their entire lives wandering in the wilderness being fed manna daily and now were expected to work the land to survive. There were so many different directions I could take Moriyah, whom I already knew would be the heroine of the next novel. When I came across the description of the cities of refuge in Joshua 20, I became intrigued by the idea of these six cities set apart as a refuge/prison for those who had accidentally killed another person. But since there was no familiar “Bible story” connected with these cities, and they were only briefly mentioned in that passage, I brushed the thought aside to delve into other ideas. However, those cities of refuge would not leave me alone. I’d mentioned the idea in passing to a friend at church, and the next week he brought me a copy of his daily devotional, which just so happened to be about those cities and how they related to Jesus’ death and our salvation. The more I mulled over the thought of these places of refuge, the more I began to see Jesus, our great High Priest, who took our sin upon himself and became our eternal sacrifice and our place of refuge from the condemnation of sin and death. The cities of refuge are a beautiful picture of the perfect balance between God’s justice and mercy, and I began to see Moriyah there, experiencing this justice and mercy in a tangible way.

  Of course, there were historical considerations to be taken into account. Although we have record of some of the battles fought by Joshua and the armies of Israel, there was most likely about seven years between Jericho and the distribution of the tribal lands. By this time, the Tabernacle (Mishkan) had been set up at Shiloh, where it would remain as the center of worship until King David moved it to Jerusalem hundreds of years later. I chose to place Moriyah’s family in that valley in order to explore what might have occurred during the years when Israel was finally settling into its inheritance and beginning to implement the laws Moses had received from Yahweh at Mount Sinai and in the wilderness. This was a time of rejoicing for the people of God, as they were finally able to build homes and to enjoy the fruit of the land of milk and honey—but by no means was settling into Canaan an easy task.

  If you are like me, you may have had images of Joshua and the armies of Israel sweeping through Canaan and dominating all of the territory with relative ease, with the exception of a few Philistine cities on the coast. However, as I began to dig into the list of cities that were inherited by the tribes in Joshua 14–19, I noticed something I never had before. Yes, the tribes were allotted certain territories after the survey of the land and the casting of lots at Shiloh (Joshua 18:8), but many of the cities within them had not even been conquered yet! Some of them, the Bible says, were never fully conquered until David came along, and even then there are numerous accounts of Canaanites still left in the land, in direct opposition to the command that God gave the Hebrews to drive them out fully.

  Megiddo, the setting for a few chapters of A Light on the Hill, was one of those cities. The king of Megiddo was defeated by Joshua (Joshua 12:21), but we see from Joshua 17:11-12 that the tribe of Manasseh was never able to take the city because Megiddo and its neighbor, Beit Sh’ean, had iron chariots that the Hebrews could not win against. The Canaanite kings had become vassal kings of Egypt after losing the Battle of Kadesh (not the Kedesh in this book) long before the Great Exodus, but for some reason Pharaoh did not send up an army against Joshua (and there are some clues that the vassal kings were begging for help—although, as usual, scholars disagree on timing and evidence, so I was forced to make some conjectures about the nature of Megiddo’s relationship with Pharaoh).

  But it is certain from the archaeological evidence that Egypt had a strong influence in Canaan and worked hard to maintain those precious trade routes that cut directly through the Land of Promise to the north and east. For my part, I believe that Pharaoh knew full well what had happened to his royal predecessor when he tried to stand against Yahweh and wasn’t willing to chance full-on war with Israel for the sake of those vassal cities. The Great Exodus had not disappeared from the minds of the Egyptians in the least bit within those fifty years. We can see from the Word that the failure of the
tribes to obey God’s directive to completely drive the Canaanites from the Land had disastrous consequences, directly contributing to the Hebrews’ repeated fall into worship of the Canaanite/Egyptian gods, a problem that would plague them throughout their history.

  One of the fun details I discovered while researching this time period was the Tu B’Av festival where Moriyah and Darek meet. Although not a whole lot is known about the origins of this festival, and it’s not a biblically ordained celebration, it is hinted at in Judges 21 when the Benjamites come to Shiloh to kidnap brides as they danced to celebrate the grape harvest. During this celebration, the women were given the freedom and opportunity to intermarry with the other Hebrew tribes. The maidens did wear white in order to hide their tribal affiliations and wealth status, but were not veiled; that was my own way of giving Moriyah the freedom to mingle in anonymity. I was delighted to learn that modern-day Israel has revived this festival, which is now their equivalent of our Valentine’s Day, a day to celebrate love and marriage that is rooted in the early days of Israel’s settlement into the Land of Promise.

  Another detail that I’d missed in earlier readings of these passages was the survey team that was sent out to describe the land of Israel in detail, traveling through enemy-held territory to do so. In Book V of The Antiquities of the Jews, the ancient historian Josephus even talks about geometricians being a part of this expedition. Although very few maps still exist from this period of time, being composed of organic materials such as papyrus and parchment, the ones that do, such as the Turin Papyrus Map, show us that Egyptians were skilled in this art as they were in many areas of mathematics and engineering. I gifted Darek with this invaluable training that might have been passed down from those educated in such knowledge in Egypt.

  Working on this new series has been a challenge and a joy, and I am so grateful to my writing and plotting partners Tammy L. Gray, Nicole Deese, Lori Bates Wright, Dana Red, Christy Barritt, and Amy Matayo for your invaluable support, both personally and professionally. I have been blessed far beyond reason by your friendships—I never expected that I would find “my people” at this stage of my life, but I cannot imagine this writing adventure without any one of you.